Joseph Drapell painted fourteen variations on one idea, inspired by a single painting, Great Spirit, Georgian Bay. He recast Manitou, the traditional male spirit, as a dream-like silhouette of a giant female figure. The series conveys the overwhelming power of the universe, though Drapell had more in mind. Each painting references an important woman in history, among them Joan of Arc, Virginia Woolf, Gertrude Stein and Eleanor Roosevelt.